Hani Mustafa speaks with Hala Galal, director of Dardasha Nesaaeyah (Women's Chat), an ambitious attempt to link the feminist past with present day lives Nesaa Raaedat (Pioneering Women) is an ambitious project that aims at producing a series of films chronicling the lives and careers of prominent Egyptian women who have distinguished themselves in the fields of, among others, journalism, culture and civil society. Among the films already completed as part of the project -- jointly financed by the European Union and Misr International Company -- is Hala Galal's Dardasha Nesaaeyah (Women's Chat) which was screened at Galaxy cinema. "When the producer Marian Khoury contacted me about making a documentary on , my immediate thoughts were how I could tie the film to contemporary events. Khoury, the researcher Rasha Labib and myself immediately began looking for a family that might represent, that might embody the changes in social concepts that have taken place between the time of Shaarawi and the present day," says Galal about the ideas behind her take on the life and achievements of the feminist pioneer. The resulting film weaves together three main strands. The first involves the extended family the filmmakers finally settled on as exemplifying the social changes they wished to foreground. Essentially it comprises a series of scenes in which the family members chat in front of the camera. The grandmother, Roh Rawan -- in her late 80s or early 90s -- sits in a wheelchair while reminiscing about the details of her early life, recalling through the accumulation of detail the ways in which she was able to carve out a margin of freedom within a conservative household. Her story is encapsulated by the seemingly inconsequential, by the way in which she would hide a cup under her bed, or in a cupboard, so that her like of coffee should not be discovered by those in the family. "I quickly discovered," says Galal, "that I was in front of a woman who was rather more than just a housewife. She had many interests, and maintained a very private life. She had a great desire to express herself through some medium, and actually learned how to burn figures on wood. She would listen to Umm Kalthoum on the first Thursday of the month, after her parents had gone to bed, and was captivated by the love songs. She worked hard to secure a private niche for herself, to secure a degree of personal freedom." The film continues to follow the same trail when Roh's daughter, Nazli, begins to talk, the conversation reflecting the changes that occurred within the family. The anecdotal evidence accumulates as Nazli reveals how she used the Gezira Club as her mailing address so that she might receive letters away from the potentially prying eyes of parents. From grandmother to granddaughters: Nazli's own children speak on camera about their conversations with their mother about their decisions to wear the veil following their marriages. Both husbands and mother apparently opposed their choice initially. And then on to the fourth generation, Nazli's granddaughter, a high school student at Cairo American College, who is also veiled. In not shying away from the differences that exist between these female family members Galal manages to foreground the large degree of mutual tolerance that characterises their relationships. The family is perhaps not intended to be representative. Their upper middle class social mileau is perfectly specified. Roh Rawan's own father was, we learn, a president of the mixed courts. Her husband was the first Egyptian president of the Gezira Club while the youngest member of the family attends one of Cairo's most expensive schools. But they do reflect a relative wide range of opinions, and over an extended time-span. "I used the family," says Galal, "to reflect my own point of view about the impact of social changes on women. My methods are not intended to be scientific. I have a perspective on the social scene in Egypt, and it was that perspective that I wanted to present in the film by focussing on developments within this particular family. I do not want to see them as being in contradiction, but simply as different in their approach and levels of freedom. Nazli fought for her right to an education while her daughters fight for their right to be veiled." The family's own anecdotal evidence is supplemented by details provided by the woman who works in their house. Twice married, her divorce from her first husband happened because she "was not happy". The chiselling out of small freedoms is a cross class activity. From family conversation the film moves on to NGO activist Hala Shukrallah, who speaks about her own family and reminisces about her growing political awareness. "Roh's family's concerns were focussed almost exclusively on the personal, the private. But," says Galal, "I was afraid that the picture would be incomplete if I did not include some element of the public, a woman who has contributed to public debate." Shukrallah details her participation in the student movement in the early 1970s, and her involvement in demonstrations and the 1972 sit-in in Tahrir Square. She also talks about the family life that formed a background to her growing political awareness and engagement with public issues. "Hala Shukrallah is an example of rebellion," says Galal. "She has been actively politicised since her late teens. She married a man from a different religion. But her inclusion is not intended to belittle any of the gains acquired by Roh or her daughter, however simple they may seem. Hiding coffee cups and receiving love letters in secret are examples of a personal struggle undertaken by people who succeeded in finding their own way of securing what they wanted." Sitting in Tahrir Square, hiding coffee cups beneath the bed: both are acts of resistance, of self- affirmation. It was left up to Hoda El-Sadda, of the Women and Memory Collective, to provide an account of the progress of women's attempts to gain greater freedoms throughout the 20th century. It is an historical account that some members of the audience found intrusive given the very personal nature of the rest of the film. "Many people, I know, objected to the historical presentation within the film," Galal says. "But I found El-Sadda's reading of feminist history intriguing, and she included some little known facts, such as Cromer's membership of an association in England opposed to women's rights. When I first met El-Sadda it was really part of the information gathering process, but after I met her I wanted her to appear in the film. Her point of view is refreshing, and I wanted to tie in the historical with the contemporary, to present the viewer with a framework within which to connect the conversations to history." Galal was lucky in that both Roh and Shukrallah could provide 8mm home movies that contributed greatly to the atmosphere of the film. Galal also used archival material and photographs to embellish El-Sadda's, which occasionally makes the structuring of the film feel a little strained. "The editing," Galal reveals, "proved very difficult. We took a long time, not only in tying in the historic material provided by El-Sadda but with structuring the conversations. In the end I feel that El-Sadda can be viewed as the film's narrator." One of the more refreshing aspects of Galal's film is that it is not constrained by stereotypes. "Every woman interviewed," Galal stresses, "mentioned her father and how he helped her learn and supported her emotionally. In the film there is no suggestion that men in general oppress women, nor do we shy away from the fact that some women have oppressed others."
